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Fun Facts about Television

Remember the time when you had to go up to the TV if you needed to change channels? I barely do. Though the TV we had at that point only had 6 channels so it wasn’t needed too much.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because television sets and the actual programs on them have evolved a lot since the first broadcasts in the 1920s. I don’t want to get into the boring stuff, so instead let’s explore 10+1 fun facts about television:

1. The inventor of the television would not let his own children watch TV. He once said to his son “There’s nothing on it worthwhile, and we’re not going to watch it in this household, and I don’t want it in your intellectual diet.” – Philo T Farnsworth.

2. In 2008, the cost of a 30-second advertisement was $2.7 million in the Super Bowl broadcast. It is the world’s most costly airtime.

3. British show Top Gear is the most watched television show in the world, with an estimated 350 million weekly viewers in 170 countries.

4. Most people dream in color, but those that grew up watching black and white television often dream in black and white.

5. Queen Elizabeth II has launched her own YouTube channel, fifty years after she first addressed the UK public on TV on Christmas morning.

World's largest plasma TV. Panasonic 150inch – you need a very large room to accommodate this one

6. The first couple shown in bed together on prime time US TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

7. It has been calculated that the average American child sees about 13,000 deaths on television between the ages of five and 14.

8. In August 2006, NASA has announced that they have lost all of their original tapes of Apollo 11’s TV transmission.

9. Sony began selling VCRs in 1970 that were capable of recording television shows. However, Sony was sued by the film studios for copyright piracy. Later on, the US Supreme Court backed Sony.

10. There is something called the “CSI effect”. Because of television crime dramas, jurors have unrealistic expectations of forensic science and investigation techniques.

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